What do killer bees, locusts, field mice, mayflies, starlings, cicadas, cuban land crabs, driver ants, redflies, locust birds, silver carp and honey bees all have in common? The "Wisdom of Crowds" or in other words the ability to Swarm in huge groups.

By studying swarming behaviour in ants, locusts and crickets there is much we can learn about robot communications, how cancer tumours spread and even how our neurons swarm to produce thoughts.

MoreIntelligentLife report on James McLurkin’s, a PhD student at MIT Computer Science and AI Lab, talk at the Idea Festival in Louisville about distributed robotics and swarm behavior.

A single ant or bee isn't smart, but their colonies are. The study of swarm intelligence is providing insights that can help humans manage complex systems, from truck routing to military robots.

Could a virtual team have a million members? Recent developments in mass collaboration, distributed computing and the wisdom of crowds suggest the answer might be yes.

The million member virtual team? Does the internet and recent advances in virtual, social and mobile technologies make it possible for human teams to be effectively unlimited in scale and rival even the largest ant colonies in terms of collaborating members? [Originally Published June 2005].

Here is a number of terms definitions that relate to bioteaming and virtual teams.